Chicago Pride 2012 – A Photo Essay

This past Sunday, Chicago hosted its annual Pride Parade. There was a new route this year, which had the parade pass right by my home. The parade had over 850,000 spectators (a record) and nearly 200 floats (scaled back from about 250 from last year). I took some photos of the setup, the parade and the teardown. Quite an interesting show all around.

Streets and San setting up the parade barraiades

Very efficient setup of crowd control barricades

How many City wokers does it take to watch people work? Almost all the vehicles in this shot are City vehicles

Pride Brunch Crepe Station

Homeade coffee cake, muffins and cooikes for brunch

What is brunch without 3 pounds of bacon for 8 people

The crowds lining up 90 minutes before the Parade starts

Governor Quinn marching in the Parade

Crowds at the start of the Parade

The Obama supporters – sans Barrack

Friends marching for Obama

Jews for queers? Why not?

My favorite float – American Airlines

Immediately following the American Airlines float, you see United. Pretty lame.

The Baton – a great Drag Club in Chicago

The Gay ROTC, protecting Chicago from Soviets with fake guns

My brunch guests enjoying the Parade

This was Lilly’s favorite float

Shock Top

Final float can’t make it down the road as it is too tall.You’d think someone would have measured before they got this far…

Streets and San clearing the street

Chain gang cleaning

The Sheriff and Team monitoring the cleaning efforts

Fleet of street sweepers doing a phenomenal job

An urban ballet

One of the most interesting parts of the Parade is how quickly the City cleans up fully after a major event. I have some fun videos too — if you are interested.

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